Thursday, 28 May 2015

Books into Film

(Yes, with the understanding that it would be everything you hoped it
could be, doing justice to the story, the characters, the writer’s
vision, and so on. Not a hatchet-job horror.)

While there are many, many, MANY books that I love and think would make great films if adapted properly, Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels always struck me as the easiest to convert into films. He actually said (when I was lucky enough to hear him speak at a literary festival) that he saw the action like a film in his head when he wrote them, and that really translates onto paper.

I know a few Discworld films have already been made, but personally I found them all a bit... wrong. The Colour of Magic majorly miscast David Jason as Rincewind, and then recast him as Albert in Hogfather, which is a much better fit, but the problem for me is that in another novel Albert and Rincewind actually meet each other, so to cast them as the same actor is just so non-canon. They weren't terrible adaptations as such, and it was great to see some Discworld stories make it to the big screen, but personally I think they started with the wrong ones.

Mort would make a fantastic film - it's already written very much like a screenplay, and has plenty of visual jokes written into it that would translate well straight to the screen. I always felt as though The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic were more of a warm-up for Sir Terry than fair examples of the Discworld series, and that the series improved very much from Equal Rites onwards.